Dispatch Series

Tricky path leads to adult work

The transition from school to adulthood can be a trying time for developmentally disabled
Ohioans.

That's when families must turn to adult social-service systems, where help comes from agencies
with differing guidelines, eligibility requirements and fewer guarantees.

There's no clearinghouse.

"We still operate in these silos of agencies," said Chris Filler, transition coordinator at
OCALI, the Ohio Center for Autism and Low Incidence.

A developmentally disabled teen who aims to be employed might first have to navigate various
bureaucracies, systems and laws:

DIRECT CONTACTS

Local school district: Responsible for producing a transition plan for disabled
students that outlines future goals and the services needed to reach them

Local universities: Some, such as Ohio State University and Columbus State
Community College, partner with special-education programs to offer early job training and
post-secondary education for people with disabilities

County boards of developmental disabilities: Local boards that serve Ohioans with
substantial impairments, providing both sheltered and community-based employment, residential
programs and living-skills support

Get Email Updates

The Dispatch E-Edition

All current subscribers have full access to Digital D, which includes the E-Edition and
unlimited premium content on Dispatch.com, BuckeyeXtra.com, BlueJacketsXtra.com and
DispatchPolitics.com.
Subscribe
today!

As a preschooler, Daniel Coffey drove the wheels off his battery-powered car.

His parents wrote the manufacturer for spare parts, again and again, so that their youngest son
- autistic, obsessive-compulsive and afflicted with a dash of Tourette's syndrome - could perfect
his parallel parking.

That stubborn focus provided early clues about how much Daniel loved to master a task.

"He wants to get things just right," said his mom, Venta. "Daniel appreciates a job well
done."

The Canal Winchester family worked for years to nurture his interests and abilities, then jumped
at the chance to involve Daniel in an intensive employment-training program. Coffey, who is 21,
will be graduating in June.

"It's like he's already had a bunch of little internships," Mrs. Coffey said.

Schools are required to prepare "transition plans" for Ohio students with developmental
disabilities. But few students are in such top-notch programs - which make them much more likely to
be employed after they move into the adult world, advocates and researchers say.

According to a sample survey of Ohio students with multiple disabilities who graduated between
2005 and 2009, just 1 in 6 reported receiving on-the-job training in school, said Robert Baer of
the Center for Innovation in Transition and Employment at Kent State University.

Those young adults, however, appear "about four times as likely to be working from 20 to 34
hours per week," said Baer, who collects post-secondary information on students with disabilities
for the Ohio Department of Education.

The success rate is probably even higher for the small group of students enrolled in
college-based pilot programs, such as the one Coffey attends through the Educational Service Center
of Central Ohio and Ohio State University, Baer said. Those efforts combine class work, social
skills and so much job training that a student with Down syndrome or other significant
developmental disabilities can graduate with a hefty portfolio of job experience and a resume
.

"You have pockets of excellence," said Margo Izzo, professor and program director at OSU's
Nisonger Center, which serves children and adults with developmental disabilities. "The question
is: How do we move from these model and pilot programs to where the best options are delivered for
all students?"

Money, cooperation and a lack of leadership get in the way.

Few ideal pathways

The pilot program Coffey attends at Ohio State costs his home school district, Canal Winchester,
about $20,000 a year.

On top of the budget challenges, successful transition services require large bureaucracies to
cooperate. But the state Department of Education, Department of Developmental Disabilities and the
Bureau of Rehabilitation Services can neither tell one another what to do nor share student
data.

That makes it difficult for pilot efforts to take root as statewide policy, officials
acknowledge.

"We know it's an issue, and we're trying to make steps," said Leslie Paull, manager of economic
and employment development at the state Department of Developmental Disabilities.

The danger is that young people with developmental disabilities will get stuck when moving from
school-based services to the adult system, where employment help is not a given and eligibility
requirements differ. When transition efforts don't go well, young people are more likely to be idle
or end up segregated with other disabled workers, experts say.

"I really want to see the engagement, the leadership, at the state level" to set goals and
streamline processes, said Lynnae Ruttledge, commissioner of the U.S. Department of Education's
Rehabilitation Services Administration. "There aren't enough created pathways."

A few generations ago, sheltered workshops for disabled people were considered among the most
innovative options for families seeking productive lives for their sons and daughters. Today, more
families aim higher, striving for a job in the community when possible.

"They do not want to see their children isolated," said Michael Kirkman, executive director of
Ohio Legal Rights Service, an independent state agency that advocates for people with
disabilities.

Advocates say the best way to staunch the flow to workshops is not to send people there in the
first place. Of the 21,000 developmentally disabled Ohioans who receive services from their county
boards and hold a job, seven of 10 work in sheltered settings alongside other disabled workers.

"It's pretty clear that Ohio is still dependent on segregated employment," Kirkman said, "and a
lot of that has to do with transition."

What option is right?

Venta Coffey had tried to picture her son in the best workshop she could imagine. Coffey's
challenges are many, and she knew employment might not come easily. She wanted to be realistic.

"I used to think, 'Was he only going to be able to sit at a table and do the same thing over and
over?'" Mrs. Coffey said. "I don't know. Because that
is the right thing for some people."

The sheltered workshops are forgiving and accepting, sparing young people the stress and shame
that can bear down when a job in the community proves too much. If a developmentally disabled
person isn't up to working on a particular day, the sheltered option allows him to do other
activities.

Many sites also provide a bustling and satisfying social scene. But Daniel Coffey has found a
path that won't isolate him from the broader community.

"We're just looking for him to be happy," Mrs. Coffey said. "To work and make a little money and
live."

Her son now has a Project Plus internship at OSU's Recreation and Physical Activity Center,
where he folds towels and vacuums straight lines into the carpet with as much determination as he
once parked his toy car.

Kathy Kuhns, a transition specialist at the Educational Service Center who works with Coffey and
about 25 other students in the center's job-training programs, beams when she talks about the
changes she's seen in helping disabled people.

"I've been through deinstitutionalization, mainstreaming, and now I work to make sure these kids
have options other than to go to the workshop," she said.

Special-education resource rooms and sheltered workshops aren't necessarily good training for
students who want to learn how to function in the larger community.

"I refer to it as picking up a professional posture, which they do here," she said. "You're
raising the bar. We're training them to interact, to problem-solve. The work is the tool."

Planning for life

Schools are supposed to produce a personal, ongoing plan for disabled students that describes
what each is likely to need to be successful with post-high school activities such as education,
employment and independent-living skills. A transition document is required under the 2004
Individuals with Disabilities Education Act.

In Ohio, planning is to begin at age 14 and get more specific at age 16 about the services that
may be needed.

State education officials say basic compliance isn't the issue. Of the nearly 70,000 Ohio
students age 16 or older who require transition components in their education plans, more than 99
percent have such plans.

The issue is quality: Many families complain that the documents are boilerplate that isn't
matched with the joint effort it takes for parents, educators and social workers to chart a
course.

"It's getting schools to not just think of it as a termination process - get 'em through," said
Lawrence Dennis, a consultant for the Ohio Department of Education's Office for Exceptional
Children. "That's a cultural shift in thinking."

Early assessments of the plans were not encouraging, the department's Tom Lather said recently
during a presentation to the Ohio Disability Employment Alliance.

"What we found out initially is that the transition plans were not very good," he said. "It's
much better, and it's getting better."

Even the best plans hinge on a cumbersome alliance of agencies. "There are so many people
involved, and so many agencies," said Claudia Ross of the Franklin County Board of Developmental
Disabilities. "That's got to be the most frustrating thing for families. A lot of players, a lot of
meetings."

And yet the agencies, because of Ohio privacy laws, can't line up databases "and speak to each
other about our kids," Lather said. "The state legislature has thrown up roadblocks about what kind
of data we can handle. We have to get over that kind of stuff."

'Does somebody care?'

Families have to push, too. Lena Meerman wouldn't be happily working at the Nisonger dental
clinic a few hours each day - and earning $8.50 an hour - if her dad and her classroom teacher had
listened to high-school officials who said she belonged in a sheltered workshop.

"It's easy," Meerman, who is 22, said of her job sterilizing dental instruments. "And plus, I
know the routine by heart now. I like the people here."

Bill Meerman's voice rises when he recounts the "failure of imagination" that nearly kept his
daughter from landing a job that has allowed her to grow beyond their dreams.

"Lena was very quickly getting to the point to where she was going to fall through the cracks,"
the Upper Arlington man said. "Now her chest is puffed up; she has confidence. Lena's a
thoroughbred out of the gate."

Dennis said students who move on to fulfilling lives often have determined advocates. "One of
the most critical variables is, 'Does somebody care?'"

Ruttledge, the federal commissioner, said there's broad agreement that transition services
belong at the forefront of disabilities-employment policy.

"Most of the discussion now is, 'Let's focus on transition and youth,'" she said during a recent
trip to Columbus. "They see themselves as being employed. Young people have taken a bite of that
apple."

Daniel Coffey's next planned stop is a supported job in the community - he's not yet ready to
work alone for hours at a time - earning the full minimum wage. He loves to mow and likely will
take a spot on a landscaping crew. Coffey also has begun meeting with potential roommates to share
an apartment.

Sometimes, it's all a bit overwhelming, and he gets cranky, longing for a road trip with his
brother or a visit to a thrift store "so I can buy a bunch of crap I don't really need."

But Coffey admits to feeling better when he has a job to do.

"I love doing laundry," he said as he loaded an industrial dryer - stopping to show off the
giant lint bin - at Ohio State. "My mom says I like it so much that I'd wash all the time. Whether
the clothes are dirty or not."